


A Blast From the Future

by Leahelisabeth (fortheloveofcamelot)



Series: Twinyards Appreciation Week [13]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen, Misunderstandings, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 10:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21298130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortheloveofcamelot/pseuds/Leahelisabeth
Summary: “Meet my fiance, Erik,” he finally said weakly.“Does Mom know?” Aaron asked.“Are you gay?” Andrew asks at the exact same time.“Fuck,” Nicky said.For Day 1 of Twinyards Appreciation Week: Misunderstandings.
Relationships: Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Nicky Hemmick & Renee Walker, Nicky Hemmick/Erik Klose
Series: Twinyards Appreciation Week [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/858608
Comments: 27
Kudos: 125
Collections: Twinyards Appreciation Week 2019





	A Blast From the Future

Nicky stood, unsure if he was actually awake, still for far too long. Erik’s happiness dimmed and was replaced by uncertainty. 

“Should I not have come?” he asked.

“Oh my god, Erik, yes, you are so welcome,” Nicky gasped, tears already beginning to gather in his eyes. He had the wherewithal to grab Erik by the collar and drag him into the house. He kicked the door closed behind them before shoving Erik up against the wall and kissing him with all the pent up frustration of every lonely night for the last fifteen years.

“What the fuck, Dad?” A voice interrupted their reunion. Nicky froze and realized with a sick sensation just where he was and what he was doing. He didn’t even know how to begin to explain this.

He looked into Erik’s eyes, still so elated that they were finally together after such a long time, but suddenly afraid of what he might have broken with one unthinking action. He stepped backward, putting some distance between him and Erik and turned to face the living room.

Aaron and Andrew stood there, arms crossed. Aaron mostly looked uncomfortable but Andrew was livid and Nicky could practically see him losing control. Neil had disappeared somewhere, possibly for good. Nicky didn’t blame him.

Nicky opened his mouth to explain but the words wouldn’t come. It didn’t matter what he said, the truth would always sound like the most unbelievable lie.

“Meet my fiance, Erik,” he finally said weakly.

“Does Mom know?” Aaron asked.

“Are you gay?” Andrew asks at the exact same time.

“Fuck,” Nicky said. “Andrew, can you go get the ice cream from the freezer? And put on the kettle for cocoa? Renee is going to be home in about fifteen minutes and we should wait for her. She’ll want to be here.”

Aaron opened his mouth as if to argue but Andrew stopped him with a hand to his arm. He backed slowly into the kitchen, never taking his eyes off Erik, and got down one of the mixing bowls. He emptied the entire remainder of the carton of ice cream into it, as if daring Nicky to stop him. It was a school night but Nicky was not willing to start this confrontation before he had to. Aaron followed his brother’s lead, filling the kettle and ladling spoonfuls of hot chocolate mix into mugs, noticeably only three of them. He poured an inch of milk in the bottom of each of them and stirred them up well. Aaron crammed the bottom of one cup full of marshmallows and spooned a tablespoon of brown sugar over it. He sprinkled cinnamon and nutmeg in another and unwrapped a candy cane from their dwindling stash to set in the third cup. 

Very clearly, none of those cups were for Nicky. He sighed and got another two mugs out of the cupboard before hesitating and grabbing a third. 

“Neil won’t drink that,” Andrew said, speaking for the first time since Erik had entered their home. He dug through their cupboard for their infrequently used box of chamomile tea and dropped a bag into one of the mugs.

Nicky shrugged and added hot chocolate and milk without the extras to mugs for him and Erik.

When the kettle boiled, Andrew poured all the mugs, leaving room for another couple marshmallows in his own, and he disappeared with his and Neil’s mugs, leaving Aaron to glare suspiciously in silence.

Andrew didn’t reappear until he heard the jingling of keys in the lock.

“What’s going on?” Renee called from the hallway. “It’s not usually so quiet in here. Are you ho...Erik? Oh my god, you made it!” She crossed the room in two quick strides and hugged him fiercely.

“What the fuck is going on?” Aaron asked.

Renee stilled. “Oh...shit...right...I guess it’s time.”

“Time for what?” Andrew asked, voice dangerously even.

Renee and Nicky looked at each other helplessly, not sure quite how to begin.

Nicky took a deep breath. “Ok, so first of all, Renee definitely knows about Erik, about everything. And yes, I am gay.”

Andrew’s tense shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly and when he spoke again, he was more curious than hostile. “What about Mom?”

“We’ve been pretending to be married all this time because Nicky wouldn’t have been able to adopt you as a single father and we needed to adopt you,” Renee said softly. “Nicky and I are very dear friends but we’ve never been in love.”

“Why did you need to adopt us?” Aaron asked.

Renee met Nicky’s eyes with the same sort of helplessness he felt inside himself. They had always planned to tell the twins where they came from but they’d never had a chance to figure out how.

“You remember Nicholas Hemmick?” Nicky finally said. “They lived close by and you used to play when you were kids. He was a bit older than you and he and his mom moved away when you were 8?”

The boys nodded and Nicky paused once more to choose his words carefully. “He’s actually your cousin. And the reason I know this is because I’m Nicky Hemmick. But we grew up differently. I knew your mother and I knew Aaron. But what I didn’t know was that Tilda, your mom, had twins and Andrew was put into the foster system. You were both so unhappy and I was too young to help and I don’t know if anyone really ever loved you at all and you both died and I couldn’t do anything.” Tears were welling up in Nicky’s eyes and he had to stop, too choked up to continue.

“What do you mean we died?” Aaron asked. “None of that ever happened.”

Andrew said nothing but he clenched the mug of hot chocolate so tightly that his knuckles were white. The ice cream melted in the bowl beside him, forgotten.

Renee saw that Nicky could not continue and took over. “Nicky was the one who had to identify your bodies and it was very hard on him. He grieved for you for a long time. And it was during that time that he met Erik. Erik’s a physicist and he’s long been researching the properties of time, searching for the secret to time travel.”

“Time travel?” Aaron exploded. “You really expect us to buy that?”

“It’s true,” Renee said. “He solved it and connected a wormhole from his lab to Columbia the day that you were born. Nicky and I both came through to adopt you and give you the second chance you needed. Erik had to stay behind to close the wormhole, but Nicky willingly sacrificed his happiness with him so he could save your lives.”

Aaron still looked skeptical, and maybe if Nicky was the only one saying it, he would have stormed off in anger, but Renee would never say something so unbelievable unless it were the truth.

“So why are you here?” Andrew asked. “Why risk opening the wormhole again?”

“It didn’t work,” Erik said. “The first thing I did after you left was look for you again and all four of you were dead in some kind of mob hit. So I got started on figuring out a way to close the wormhole behind me when I left. I didn’t want to trust anyone else with this power. It took me ten years but I figured it out and now here I am with a warning. Do not trust Nathaniel Wesninski.”

A crash sounded from the kitchen door. Neil stood there, shaking, caught in the throes of a massive panic attack, the shards of his tea mug scattered all around him.

Andrew was up instantly, uncaring of the glass under his socked feet. He clasped the back of Neil’s neck tightly, trying to bring him out of it.

“That’s him,” Erik whispered, horror in his voice. “That’s Nathaniel.”


End file.
